


To Steve Rogers

by sweet_arsenic



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Friends With Benefits, M/M, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-02-09 13:48:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18639340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweet_arsenic/pseuds/sweet_arsenic
Summary: "I have always and will always love you. I don’t suppose I ever had the choice not to."ORTony's confession to Steve Rogers in the form of a hologram recording





	To Steve Rogers

**Author's Note:**

> So this happens sometime AFTER they rescue Tony from the ship and have him build the time machine but sometime BEFORE they collected all the infinity stones again to unsnap everything

Is this thing on?

Listen, I know you don’t want to start taking orders from a hologram of Tony Stark, but if you have any business watching this till the end, I suggest you take a seat. This will likely take more time than we both anticipate.

Why am I doing this, exactly, though? I have no idea. It’s not like I care about final words or sayings or stuff like that. The inevitable should stay inevitable, right? Death happens sometimes and it’s a bummer but you can’t stop it. And I know a lot of people — better people, greater people — didn’t get their endings happy and didn’t get their last words or saying etched forever in history, so why should I? Why should anyone care what I had to say, right?

Well, truth is, I learned not to care much about what the world will say about me. At one point in life, you just gotta let that stuff go or else it’ll drive you insane and you’ll be drowning out the opinions of others by investing in alcohol, drugs, and prostitutes. Yeah, got a little too personal there, I know.

But what you should know, Steve, is that I care a great deal about what you have to think about me.

Maybe that’s a shocker to you, maybe it isn’t. I don’t know. All I know is that you’re probably listening to this recording now and learning things about me you never even thought of. Things I never bothered to tell you.

Not that I  _ could  _ tell you. I mean, we were sleeping together, but that didn’t mean that things were any different between the two of us.

Remember when we first started, after New York? Remember how scared and shaky we both were, still hardened from battle and desperate to feel someone else’s touch to know it had been real? That it was real and we were alive.

I remember how hazy with pain my mind was, that, for a little while, you made that pain disappear when you dipped down and took care of me. I was going to make a joke about the hundred-year-old virgin, but I could care less about fumbling fingers when my own hands were shaking and my eyes watery.

You took care of me that night. And I’ll always remember that. Maybe that would begin my descent into the deep pit that would lead me to loving you, maybe it was something else. All I knew was that all the people in the world and Captain America was spending the night sleeping in my bed.

I felt loved. I felt special. And I hadn’t felt like that… I hadn’t felt like that in a long time.

And it didn’t help that you just kept coming back. It didn’t help that, when I turned to you, when I needed you, you were there. It started a cycle. Of me trusting you to be there when I needed you to be, and you being there for me. Everything you did made me trust you.

So whatever was happening to me, I let it happen. I let you come into my bed over and over, I let you cook me dinner when I was working overtime in the lab, I let you care for me whenever I needed you. Eventually, the need grew too large. Eventually, I depended on you.

And then the Accords happened. And so did Zemo’s plan.

I can’t say I will ever forgive you for what you’ve done.

But I guess overtime my care for all of that just disappeared and I turned to indifference instead. So when you showed up years later after my ship landed on Earth, I had a revelation.

I have always and will always love you. I don’t suppose I ever had the choice not to.

You see, I don’t mean to get all love guru here, but the way I see it works: life just picks a person out for you. And you don’t get a choice whether or not you want to be with them, you  _ have  _ to be with them. Because if not, your heart aches every second you know they’re away from you even if you know it’s for the better. Even if you know the fate of the universe depended on them keeping their distance.

I know, I just explained soulmates. How lame is that that I still believe in soulmates? That I still believe in the existence of love that was meant to be from the start? I know I’ll never hear the end of it once anyone gets a hold of these.

But that’s just how it worked for us. For me. The universe gave me you and I had no choice but to take it. But it never gave me us.

From the countless times we’ve fucked — and I don’t want to see you grimacing at that word, I’m being crude here because that’s how wrong everything sounds — you’ve made it clear. Yes, Tony, I love someone else. Yes, Tony, you’re a replacement. Less than a replacement, actually, because I could never fill up the void left in that chest of yours.

And maybe that was the reason I could never stop loving you. Because no matter how much I tried, I know I could never get you to love me back. And that was just my self-hatred talking again, convincing me I never deserved to get what I wanted. What I needed.

And who’s to say I actually needed you? I did well without you, fine. I cried, sure, but who doesn’t? I suffered and I mourned for lost love and I kept tracing the space of the bed where you had once been. Look at me, getting all poetic just because my fuck buddy didn’t happen to love my sorry ass back.

But I was fine. I was  _ good _ . I did my best every day, I helped people, I took care of the kid. I survived and in that moment I realized that maybe leaving you wouldn’t kill me.

But then what’s the point of all this, you might be asking, if not to confess my “everlasting, undying” love for you? Well, truth is, I don’t quite know either. Maybe I do love you, maybe I don’t. All I know is that there was a time that I needed you, more than anyone else. And you actually showed up.

And damn you, by the way, for that. Damn you for holding me in your arms as soon as I returned to Earth. Damn you for organizing a mission to get me out. Damn you for giving a damn about me.

Now I don’t know if you cared that much, or if it was just you doing what you did best: rescuing everybody. I don’t want to know, because I don’t know which truth will hurt me more, the fact that you cared which meant I can rekindle that chest of hope locked away somewhere in my heart or the fact that you fought just for the sake of saving us. I know both will kill me.

But I guess all I really want to say… is that everything I’ve been through showed I am really willing to let you go.

Maybe that’s the greatest kind of love of all, maybe it isn’t, but who am I to decide when I’m the one nursing a broken heart here. The truth is, I don’t care about you wanting me back anymore. Truly. I don’t care if we spend the rest of our lives together and grow old and adopt a kid who we’ll name after your mother if she’s a girl and after some famous scientist if he’s a boy. I don’t care if I have that future ripped away from me because understand this, Rogers, I love you too much to keep you where you don’t want to be kept.

I want you more than anything. But I also know that loving you means keeping you happy, as cliche as that sounds. It means I don’t care if you want to travel back in time to live out the rest of your life in Peggy Carter’s arms. Do it. Do anything that makes you happy.

That’s a million-dollar idea, isn’t it? You can use our little time machine to go back where your life once stopped to live out the rest of your life. You can use it to have a do over. You can use it to be happy.

And you know what, I’ll let you. You don’t have to think about me this time, no strings attached, remember? I'll let you because, get this, I learned that there isn't anything I wouldn't do to keep you happy.

This isn't meant to be our farewell or anything like that. This isn't even meant to be a confession, I just threw that in along the way. This is me telling you that whatever you're planning on doing, whatever you have done, I'll let you. I'll always let you.

Because deep down, Rogers, I don't even care if it kills me. But I want you to love who you love. I want you to try a little bit of that life that you were always too scared to try. I want you to live.

So don't worry about me. Whatever happens, I'll walk it off.

Sincerely, yours truly... me.

**Author's Note:**

> Well that summed up all the feelings I have for endgame. Sorry if this is trash, I'm still sad and recovering.
> 
> I still don't have a mcu sideblog on Tumblr, so I'll just link my vld/writing sideblog [here](https://omegakeith.tumblr.com/). Don't forget to drop by my ko-fi or Patreon (links in my Tumblr) and spread a little love if you enjoyed this fic!


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